


A Disordered Mind

by InchByInch



Category: Homeland
Genre: 6.01 spoiler, F/M, Quinn's thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 07:52:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9375314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InchByInch/pseuds/InchByInch
Summary: Another take on what Quinn might be thinking in the basement.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've tried to avoid spoilers, so I have no idea whether this version of Quinn will fit with anything post 6.01.

 

_I live here with Frannie.  It’s our home, right upstairs. So, don’t bring troubled people here, or do drugs, or behave like you did last night._

_Understood._

Right upstairs.  Up there.  He wanted to look right through the ceiling.  Maybe he could.  What would he see?  A happy home.  What did that even look like?  He wanted to see it. Carrie and Frannie, being happy together. Safe and happy. Safe.

Hell, no way was he going to let any of that danger near Carrie’s home, where she slept, where Frannie stayed.  No way.  He certainly wouldn’t bring any of that nastiness here. He was disgusted that she even suggested he might.  She was an idiot for suggesting it. Why the hell would she even think it? … God, he was asshole for accepting her charity when he was in this state.  She shouldn’t let him anywhere near Frannie.  Why was she reminding him his humiliation?  She shouldn’t even know about that part of him.  He needed shut her out, keep her away from seeing how low he’d fallen. Shit.  She had seen him there in that drug den today. Had to remind him he wasn’t wearing pants.  Shit. She should just stop talking now and leave him alone.  Leave me the fuck alone, Carrie.  Go away.

Acting crazy was an effective strategy these days, even with Carrie, sometimes.  His training made it easy to take what was real and amp it up a little to be more effective. 

 Feeling angry at that terrorist fucker?  Push it, and put a knife through his hand.

 Feeling curious about the ceiling and seeing swimming images? Push it, and ask about moving wallpaper.  No answer for that, huh, Carrie? Off you go and leave me in peace. 

Is she really leaving me?  Where is she going?

Shower.  Excellent idea.  He needed to focus and make a plan, and he really wanted a shower.  God, she was offended by his smell, his stink, his rotten core.  He probably smelled like those whores.  Poor girls. Clarice had pretended he wasn’t a freak and he had felt like a man again, briefly. Of course, that was because he had what Clarice needed, money. He knew that, but that was a calculus that felt familiar.  Quinn had always survived by providing what people needed. Carrie didn’t need anything from him anymore, and that was the problem.  He couldn’t just keep leeching off her, like a parasite.  Carrie was not going to let him drive her car, like Clarice. Clarice had been honestly kind to him. He wanted to smash that bastard pimp’s face and take those girls away to some place nicer, safer.  He wanted to, he thought about it, but of course, he kept forgetting he couldn’t help anyone anymore.  Couldn’t even protect himself. 

He thought he had a plan, “Make that bastard think you’re crazy, then punch him in the throat with your good hand and take his gun.”  Quinn had a number of moves he could have used in that situation, once.  But last night he had just kept thinking about his plan while he allowed that idiot clobber him. He was almost surprised when his instincts didn’t kick in, like he was watching a movie of someone else getting pummeled.  Except it hurt.

Everything hurt now, and he was so fucking tired all the time. He’d fallen asleep in car and Carrie’d had to wake him up to give him a hamburger. Eating hurt.  Breathing was hurting more today – clearly smoking last night had been bad for his lungs.  He had always been good a withstanding physical issues such as pain and exhaustion, but now his body had betrayed him and his physical problems affected his mind. He couldn’t keep his train of thought focused.  Trying to accomplish simple tasks was too damn difficult and he found his own inadequacy intolerable.  In the past, anger had always been an effective expression of sadness or fear, but “effective” is did not apply to him anymore, no matter how much rage he ginned up.  And no matter how pissed he got at the world, he still was continually overwhelmed by the grief he felt for his former self.  He couldn’t seem to wrap himself in his armor of cold control.  Every thought and emotion spilled into another, causing him to lose focus – preventing him from building walls and making plans.

He couldn’t even defend himself against the fucking hospital security guards.  God he was helpless and pathetic, and he had felt scared as shit. More scared than in that chamber, or plenty of other times when he faced death.  He had been trying his damnedest, and just one ridiculous guard had contained him.  His efforts to get free just made him feel more and more worthless and fucking scared.  Then she made them stop and said he didn’t have to go back.  No more hospital.  Thank God, no more fucking hospital.  She had taken him away from there.  Couldn’t get away from the prison of his fucking broken body, but at least he was out of the hospital. 

So, he was here now.  Next month he would just give her his check, a much better plan for keeping himself out of trouble. And she was upstairs, right above him.  Down here, her basement was quiet, with space to breathe.  He even had his own bathroom.  Yeah, he would take a shower right now.  She had told him to take a shower.  When is the last time he took a shower in peace?  Or been able to fall asleep in silence?  Berlin?  He had been living in that abandoned garage. For Christ sake, that place had been more like a cave for an animal, not a home.  Jesus, he once had a mind and could do anything, but he chose to live like an animal in a cave.  Now he really was an animal – couldn’t talk, couldn’t think, couldn’t defend himself.  He couldn’t even tell when the damn lights were fooling him or when they were just ordinary lights. 

Except now, he really did have a home, finally away from the fucking hospital. No harsh lights, just soothing dimness, silence, and solitude. Maybe here he could bring some order to his scattered thoughts.  Carrie was upstairs at a safe distance. Present, but not right in his face, which was perfect, really. Her footsteps above reminded him she was near, but he didn’t have to listen to her instruct him like a child, or worry about what she was missing while she was with him. Instructing him to do simple things, like he didn’t know when to take a shower, for fuck’s sake.

Shower, that’s right, focus.  He would go in the shower and make a plan.  He needed a new plan. His plan up to now had been to wait for this month’s check and then go see Clarice.  Get high, get off, and see what happened.  He knew, of course, what was going to happen.  The same thing that happened the first time he got out and met Clarice – found himself lying in a bathtub with no money left from his check.  That’s what happens to people who are completely weak and defenseless.  Maybe they would leave him somewhere where he could just rot away in peace. At the very least, he would have no more money for a month, and so no way to get hooked.  Which was a good thing, because of course, pathetic as he was, he really didn’t want to become a junky.   

That was part of the problem, he wanted to get away from the hospital, but he didn’t want to sleep on the streets, stealing from other people just to eat, getting beat up, or locked up. No, he needed to keep focused on the fact that the streets would be worse than the hospital.  Of course, here in her basement, he could just walk away if he got sick of depending on Carrie.  He would have to keep reminding himself that it would be worse for her if he took off.  Stick to the plan, keep focused: the streets are not freedom, the streets lead to bigger problems, like getting thrown in jail. Jail would be the worst of all.  She had come to get him in jail once, too. He definitely did not want her to have to come get him from some hole. 

But that is exactly what had happened, she had to come find him in that flop house today, and he hadn’t even known where his pants were. God, he was repulsive. He should just drop dead of shame. She knew it, now.  She wouldn’t want him ever, not that she ever had anyway. 

But she had looked for him, and even after she found him there, she brought him here.  She hadn’t let him be taken away by those fucking hospital guards with their locked ward, scaring her with that image.  She had been in a locked ward -- fucking Saul had left her there.  Quinn couldn’t get her out, couldn’t do a thing to help her, but she had helped him today.  She was braver than he was. How pathetic was that, he was supposed to be a bad-ass operative, but his girlfriend was braver than he was.

Except that Carrie was the bravest person he had ever known, and she was certainly not his girlfriend.  What the fuck was she?  His friend?  He had friends, but none of them were by his side through all this shit.  He remembered the last 2-3 months pretty well, and all of it had been fucking disgusting – relying on her and everyone else to help him do basic things, constantly falling and flailing around like a spaz, mewling and honking like an animal instead of speaking.

He didn’t even want to think about the time before, which was just a haze of images.  Drooling out applesauce that she fed him like a baby, as if she was his fucking mother.  Struggling to sit on a commode that the nurse had to empty out, because he couldn’t get to the toilet.  But there were other images, too.  Carrie holding his hand, just holding his hand and reading to him, soothing him with the sound of her voice.  She massaged lotion into his skin, and ran her fingers through his hair.  She had kissed him, too. Cried when he spoke her name.  Maybe she had even kissed him a lot, kissed his hands and his face. When had she stopped doing that? She had kissed him in Virginia, too, before, in that brief flash between the clusterfuck of death in the Islamabad embassy and the even deeper hell of Syria.  They had kissed and been real people, for that one moment. 

So, maybe she was like his girlfriend.  Maybe there was a reason she had given him a double bed.  Maybe she wanted to see him, to be with him, maybe even kiss him again.  He could go to her.  She was right upstairs, right above the ceiling.  He could go up the stairs, go to her.  See her home and finally meet big-girl Frannie.  He would tell Carrie he was sorry.  Tell her how grateful he was for all her care, for getting him away from the hospital, for not letting him go.  Tell her that he was going to work on getting better.  All he had to do was push himself up the stairs and open the door. He was doing it.  He was going to open the door, and tell her everything that was on his heart, and they would be happy.  Up the stairs.  And open the door.

 


End file.
